Tamasheq Alphabet & Letters

Tamasheq is the language of the Tuareg, the Berber (Amazigh) people of the Sahara and the Sahel. Its name changes with the dialect, because one consonant in the middle of it does: Tamašǝq in Mali, Tamajaq in Niger and Tamahaq in the Ahaggar of southern Algeria. Speakers often call themselves Kel Tamasheq, the people of Tamasheq, and the same shift runs through their name for themselves: Imušaɣ, Imajeɣen, Imuhaɣ.

CLDR, the Unicode database of language data, lists no alphabet for Tamashek, so the grid follows the official Latin alphabet of Tamajaq in Niger, where most speakers live: a â ă ǝ b c d ḍ e ê f g ǧ h i î j ǰ ɣ k l ḷ m n ŋ o ô q r s ṣ š t ṭ u û w x y z ẓ. The Malian standard differs in several letters: it includes ḥ ʔ ž and omits Niger's c ǧ ǰ and circumflex vowels â ê î ô û. Both official alphabets use the turned e ǝ (capital Ǝ); schwa ə (capital Ə) is a distinct character used in some transcriptions. They are separate Unicode characters, and both pairs are in the grid.

In the official Niger alphabet, the letters beyond plain A–Z are â ă ǝ ḍ ê ǧ î ǰ ɣ ḷ ŋ ô ṣ š ṭ û ẓ. Mali's standard also includes ḥ ʔ ž. There is no p or v in either alphabet. Doubled consonants are written double and are pronounced long, as in tanǝmmert, thank you.

What the special Tamasheq letters sound like

Vowels come in two kinds. a e i o u are full vowels; ă is a short a and ǝ is the short, neutral vowel heard in the first syllable of English about. Both appear in the language's own name, Tămajăq in careful Niger spelling and Tamašǝq in Mali.

Among the consonants, ɣ (a Latin gamma, not the Greek γ) is a gargled gh made at the back of the mouth, close to a French r, as in Tifinaɣ; x is the rough kh of Scottish loch; q is a k made deep in the throat; ŋ is the ng of English sing. The caron marks hushing sounds: š is the sh of shoe, ž the zh of measure, and ǧ and ǰ write j-like sounds whose exact pronunciation differs from one Tuareg dialect to another.

The dotted letters ḍ ḷ ṣ ṭ ẓ are the emphatic consonants shared by the Berber languages: the back of the tongue is pulled toward the throat, so the whole syllable sounds darker. They distinguish words, so a plain d or z in their place is a misspelling, not just a simplification.

The Tuareg Tifinagh alphabet

Long before Latin letters, the Tuareg wrote their language in Tifinagh (tifinaɣ), a script descended from the ancient Libyco-Berber writing seen on rock inscriptions across North Africa. The Tuareg are the Berber people who kept it in unbroken everyday use: it is carved on rocks and jewellery, written on leather and wood, and used for names, short messages and word games, and it is often women who pass it on to the young.

Traditional Tuareg Tifinagh is mostly a consonant script: vowels inside a word are left for the reader to supply, and lines could run in any direction. Several Tuareg letter shapes differ from the standardised Tifinagh taught in Morocco, so Unicode gives them their own code points: ⴾ k, ⵂ h, ⵆ kh, ⵈ q, ⵌ zh, ⵐ gn, ⵑ ng and ⵗ gh, plus the regional forms ⵋ (Ahaggar), ⵘ (Aïr) and ⵤ (Tawellemmet). Many other letters, such as ⵜ t, ⵍ l, ⵎ m, ⵏ n, ⵔ r and ⵙ s, are shared with the general Tifinagh block.

ⵣ, the letter yaz, is the Amazigh emblem that also stands at the centre of the Amazigh flag; Tuareg wear it on pendants and print it on scarves and shirts. For the Moroccan standard Tifinagh, see the Tachelhit collection; for a Berber Latin alphabet close to this one, see Kabyle.

How to type Tamasheq letters on a keyboard and phone

On Windows, in Word and many other programs, type the code and press Alt+X: 0103 ă, 01DD ǝ, 0259 ə, 0263 ɣ, 014B ŋ, 0161 š, 017E ž, 01E7 ǧ, 01F0 ǰ, 1E0D ḍ, 1E37 ḷ, 1E63 ṣ, 1E6D ṭ, 1E93 ẓ. Capital ǰ has no code of its own: type J, then 030C and Alt+X to add the caron.

On a Mac, the ABC Extended input source has dead keys for these accents: Option+X then a letter gives the dot below (ḍ ṣ ṭ ẓ), Option+V gives the caron (š ž ǧ) and Option+B the breve (ă). For ǝ, ɣ and ŋ use the Character Viewer (Control+Command+Space) or copy them from this page. In HTML, ă, š and ŋ give ă, š and ŋ, and numeric codes such as ǝ (ǝ) and ɣ (ɣ) cover the rest.

On phones, most standard keyboards do not offer ǝ or ɣ, so many people copy them, or write e and gh in quick chat. Tap any letter in the grid to copy it, or copy whole words from the phrases below.

Where Tamasheq is spoken

CLDR estimates about 2 million speakers of Tamashek. The largest group, roughly 1.6 million, lives in Niger 🇳🇪, in the Aïr mountains around Agadez and across the north and west; about 460,000 live in Mali 🇲🇱, around Kidal, Timbuktu, Gao and Ménaka. Smaller Tuareg communities live in southern Algeria 🇩🇿 and southwestern Libya 🇱🇾, where Tamahaq is spoken, and in northern Burkina Faso 🇧🇫.

Tamasheq belongs to the Tuareg group within the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family. Other Tuareg varieties are its closest relatives; Kabyle, Tachelhit, Central Atlas Tamazight and Riffian are all Northern Berber languages. Its neighbours in the Sahel are Hausa, Zarma and Fulfulde, each with its own collection, and the Niger and Mali collections gather the flags, letters and emoji of both countries. Niger and Mali use the West African CFA franc, which has no Unicode sign and is written F CFA.